Dry County

by Jake Hinkson

  “I hate you. You don’t think that’s an act, do you?”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “You know, you’d almost be pretty if you didn’t act like such a bitch all the time.”

  After he says it, the way he just stares at me makes the light in my room seem too bright. My skin is warm and cold at the same time.

  “I’m serious about the statue,” I say. “You should call them and see.”

  He nods like I’m full of shit and looks at my dresser next to the door. He fingers a couple of my rings, and then he picks up one of my hair clips. “You told me to mind my own business. Funny thing is, though, at my business, I hear a lot about your business.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Whoever you do your business with, it’s their business, too. And if you do your business with enough people and it gets around town, then, hell, it’s everybody’s business. Hard to have a private life when it involves everybody in the county. And a lot of them people come through my bars. You think I don’t hear about shit?”

  For a second, I think he’s talking about Gary and the preacher, but he’s not. He’s talking about old shit. “I don’t care what you heard,” I say. “I never did nothing with you, and I wouldn’t do nothing with you. And put my stuff down.”

  He smells my hair clip. “Oh, you done it with worse then me, ain’t you? The story around the bar is that back in school you didn’t turn nobody down. You know everybody knows about that night in the back of the BBQ Pit, right? You and, who, every guy that worked there? Boys talk, Sarabeth. They say that by the time the last one got to you, he couldn’t even get it up because you was just too goddamn gross to look at.”

  Outside, a car turns into our lot. Momma? No, she has to work tonight.

  The front door opens, and Tommy turns around. “You can’t just walk into somebody’s house, boy,” he says.

  “I’m sorry,” I hear Gary say down the hall.

  “Hey, Gary, I’m back here,” I call real loud.

  Gary comes up to my bedroom door, but Tommy don’t move out of the way.

  Gary looks at me. “I just wanted to talk to you,” he says.

  “Good, I want to talk to you, too.”

  “He know?” Tommy says, jerking his head at Gary.

  “Shut up, Tommy.”

  “Know what?” Gary says.

  He puts down the hair clip. “About your little girlfriend here, Gary. About what all she done.”

  “Shut up, I said!”

  Gary looks back and forth between us. “What’s he talking about?” he asks me.

  “He’s just being an asshole and talking a bunch of shit. Before you walked in here he was trying to get me to blow him or something.”

  Gary is almost as tall as Tommy, but Tommy’s older and meaner. Gary can’t really look at him. I think he’s afraid.

  Tommy smirks. “I never said nothing about no blow jobs, but I heard you give enough of them. Gary, you ever hear about Sarabeth fucking all them guys down at the Pit?”

  Gary glances at me, and then he turns and punches Tommy in the face. Tommy staggers back, but once he gets his balance, he jumps on Gary. I scramble over my bed, yelling and running after them as they tumble down the hallway, knocking pictures off the wall. Maybe Gary gets in some hits at first, but after Tommy punches him a couple of times, Gary covers up like a damn kid. Tommy drags him across the living room carpet by his hair and his shirt, and Gary’s trying to get to his feet, but Tommy kicks open the screen door and throws him outside.

  I swing on Tommy, and he takes the hit and catches my hands. I try to claw his eyes, but he’s too strong and holds my wrists. When I try to knee him in the balls, he jerks his leg up and catches it on his thigh.

  He shoves me to the floor.

  I’m cussing him a wild blue streak when his phone starts blasting a Toby Keith ringtone. Tommy tells me, “Fuck you, you little slut. Why don’t you go pick your boyfriend up off the lawn? Best get him out of here before he makes me hurt him for real.” Then he answers the phone. “Hey, Frankie, what’s up?”

  I run outside, and Gary is already standing up, tears coming out of his eyes and blood and snot coming out of his nose.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and the shame is all over him for getting his ass kicked in front of me. His voice cracks when he says, “I’ll go back in there and kill him if you want me to. I will. I’m not afraid.”

  My skin turns to ice. Blood is pumping in my ears.

  “You really do love me, don’t you?” I say. “You really would kill him for me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  I shake my head and reach for him, pull him close to me. I tell him, “I love you, too, Gary.” And goddamn it, I really do mean it.

  FOURTEEN GARY DOANE

  I’m still hocking up blood and snot when Tommy runs outside, shoving his phone in his pocket. I try to get in front of Sarabeth because I’m afraid he’s going to come at her again, but suddenly, he doesn’t care about us at all. He jumps in his truck and tears out of there, his tires spitting gravel.

  She asks me if I want to go back inside. But I don’t want to be here when Tommy comes back.

  Where is there left for us to go? Not my house, not hers. We get in my mom’s car, and I let her drive so I can soak up my bloody nose on some napkins in the glove compartment.

  We don’t say anything for a while. We’re both shaking. I don’t know what she’s over there thinking, but I’m content to let her think it in peace.

  I’m not mad anymore. My heart’s stopped pounding so bad. My nose feels a little better, too. I touch it with my fingertips. It’s stopped bleeding.

  Sarabeth says, “You . . . didn’t have to do that for me.”

  I shrug.

  “You didn’t have to do that for me, but I’m glad you did. I have to get away from here. I hate that motherfucker. God, I hate this whole place.”

  “Did he touch you? Before I got there?”

  “No.”

  “Has he ever . . .”

  “Don’t. He never touched me. He was just talking shit.”

  I tell her, “He’s such a piece of fucking garbage. I don’t know why your mom is with him.”

  “Well, she ain’t never had taste in men. That’s for damn sure.”

  “Not like you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I mean, you’re with me.”

  “Oh.” She tries to smile.

  “What’d you think I meant?”

  “What he was talking about back there. The story about when I worked at the BBQ Pit in high school.”

  “Oh. No, I meant you got good taste in men ’cause you’re with me.”

  She takes us out to the highway. I don’t know where she’s going. I bet she doesn’t know, either. Sarabeth is the type who just gets in and drives and figures out where she’s going later. I admire that about her.

  She looks over at me. “You believe what he said back there? That story about me?”

  “Let me ask you a question,” I say. “Have I ever asked you about it?”

  “No.”

  “You know that story has been around town for years. I mean, you know it has. Have I ever asked you about it?”

  “No.”

  “I ever ask you about anyone you’ve ever been with?”

  “No.”

  “You ever wonder why I never asked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I don’t care. I do not care. I mean, if you want to tell me, then you should. If you want me to know because it’s important to you, then I want to know. Then I do care, because you care. But I don’t have any, you know, idle curiosity about it.”

  She takes a deep breath. “It’s true,” she says. “About that night after work at the Pit, I mean.”

  I nod, but I don’t say anything.

  “There was only three of them,” she says, “but everybody thinks it was literally every guy who worked there. I know for a fact that Jimmy Bell told p
eople he was there, but he didn’t even work that night. For a while there, though, for like a week or so, it was this big thing to say you was in on the Sarabeth Simmons gangbang. The other boys thought it was all hard-core and shit. But then what happened was, the girls in town didn’t like it. No nice Christian girl wants to date a guy who fucked the town slut in a gangbang. So the boys all stopped bragging, and then everybody just kinda forgot about the boys. It’s like everybody was in on it and nobody was in on it. Nobody wants to admit they fucked me, so now I’m the slut who never fucked anybody in particular. The boys all got off scot-free, but everybody still looks at me like I’m a piece of shit.”

  She takes another deep breath and glances over at me.

  I say, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For Van Buren County being such a shitty place for you.”

  She nods. “You heard about it, huh?”

  “About that night? Yeah.”

  “And you really don’t care?”

  “I care that you got hurt.”

  She puts her head down. “Gary . . .”

  I look back at the road, wanting her to look up at it. Finally, she does look up, and she turns on the signal and pulls off the road. She puts the car in park and leans over and cries in my arms.

  “Fuck this place,” I say. “You want to know why I went along when you said I should flirt with the preacher? Because fuck this place. He’s the king of the hypocrites. He’s their big hero and look at what he is. He’s nothing but a damn liar.”

  She looks up at me and nods. “You’re right. But what are we going to do?”

  “I tell you what we do. We pack up tonight.”

  “Yes,” she says, sitting up. “Hell yes.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Me too. Let’s get the fuck out of here. Tonight. But what about the preacher?”

  “He’s gonna pay us,” I say. “He’s gonna pay us what he owes us. He’s gonna pay us what all these fuckers owe us.”

  FIFTEEN BRIAN HARTEN

  Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-seven dollars.

  I stare at it on my bed, divided up into stacks of hundreds, twenties, tens, fives, and ones. No fifties. Nobody really uses fifties anymore. Sorry, Grant.

  Nearly twenty grand sitting on my bed. Most of it is in twenties. Maybe ten thousand bucks just in twenty-dollar bills alone.

  I’ve counted it three times now. After I ditched my clothes and got cleaned up and changed into new clothes, first thing I did was count the cash. Then I counted it again. And again.

  Nineteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-seven dollars.

  I walk around all that cash, stare at it, sit down on a chair across from it like I want to have a conversation with it about our future.

  I could just keep it. I mean, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. The hell with Richard Weatherford and whatever bullshit he’s gotten himself into. I made myself nearly twenty grand tonight with five bucks’ worth of gas. And now I’m fixing to hand it over to some asshole? And not just some asshole. The asshole who’s keeping me from opening my store and turning my life around. I’m going to commit a crime and then give him the money?

  But, okay, then what am I going to do with nearly twenty grand? It’s a lot of money, but it ain’t a whole lot of money. It won’t help me open the store. I guess I could pay off some of my creditors.

  But what am I going to do? Pay people back with a stack of twenties? Like that wouldn’t be suspicious.

  I go over and peek through the blinds. No one.

  They’ll know it was me.

  It could be anyone. But ain’t I gonna be the first one they think of? Tommy’s not going to know it’s me? Of course he is. I’m gonna be the first motherfucker he thinks about.

  No, I can’t keep this shit. The sooner I get rid of it, the better off I’ll be. I’ll hand it over to the preacher and that will be that. That way, when the cops come and shake me down, they won’t find a thing.

  I start packing it up. After I left Tommy’s, I ditched the backpack and stuffed the cash in an old Walmart bag from Roxie’s floorboard. Now I cram the money back in the bag and wrap it shut with some packing tape. I throw on a jacket even though it’s not really cool enough for one, shove the money under my arm, and zip up the jacket. I walk outside with my left arm clamped to my side.

  I’m locking my door when Erikson calls me across the parking lot. “Hey, Harten, come here.”

  He’s actually standing in the middle of the parking lot. Can’t act like I don’t see him. I just give him a wave. “Hey, man, I gotta run.”

  “Come here.”

  “Gotta go. No time.”

  “Get your ass over here,” he says. He says it half joking, just dude to dude, but he also seems a little annoyed that I won’t come over. “Just take a second.”

  It’ll look weird, me being rude like this. So I go over to him. He’s standing behind a couple of my neighbors’ cars.

  “The hell you wearing a jacket for?” he asks.

  “It’s a little chilly.”

  “Not really.”

  “That why you called me over here, man?”

  He shakes his head and points between the cars. There’s a cat, gray with stripes, looking back at us.

  “What?” I say. “You never saw a cat before?”

  “You see his balls?”

  “What?”

  “Look! I mean, tell me them ain’t the biggest pair of cat balls you ever seen.”

  “I can’t see his balls, man.”

  “Look.”

  “I am looking, but he’s sitting down.”

  “Here, let me turn him around.”

  Erikson stomps and claps, and the cat darts away under one of the cars and across the parking lot. Before he disappears behind the apartments, I catch a glimpse of his balls. They’re pretty big.

  “You see ’em?”

  “Yeah, man. They’re pretty big.”

  He smiles like he just proved that God exists.

  “When’s the last time you even saw a cat with balls?” he says. “I mean, any cat? Everybody’s cutting balls off cats morning, noon, and night. But that dude is packing. Mr. Balls, my man.”

  “Okay, man . . . If we’re done gawking at some cat’s nutsack, I gotta go.”

  He nods. “Where you heading?”

  “Gotta take Roxie’s car back to her.”

  “Yeah, she came around looking for you.”

  “What? When?”

  “I don’t know. Earlier. She going out with Jeff Tramble? They come by in his truck, pulled in, she got out and knocked on your door. When you wasn’t here, they left.”

  “She’s looking for her car. I had to borrow it this morning, and I told her I would get it back to her a while ago. She’s probably pissed as hell.”

  “Couldn’t get your car outta hock?”

  I just shrug that off like I don’t want to talk about it, which I don’t. “I’ll see you later,” I say.

  “Something wrong with your arm?”

  “No.”

  “Holding it kind of funny.”

  “I don’t know, maybe it’s my back. I think I fucked it up this morning when that dude kicked my ass.” I glance at my cell like I’m looking at the time. “I gotta go.”

  He just barely nods and doesn’t say anything, but he stares as I walk over to Roxie’s car. I get in and fire it up, and I try not to look at him as I’m backing out, but when I get to the edge of the parking lot, just before I turn onto the road and drive away, I check the rearview mirror, and he’s still watching me.

  I drive to the Exxon and use the payphone like a drug dealer in the seventies. The preacher picks up on the second ring.

  “Yes?”

  “You know who this is?” I ask.

  “Mr. Harten.”

  “Don’t say my name, man. Don’t you read the papers? NSA and all that shit.”

  He just mouth breathes into the phone for a while.
Then he says, “I don’t know what to say, then.”

  “You want to meet? I got your stuff.”

  “Where?”

  “Same place as last time.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I can meet you tomorrow.”

  “No, no, no, man. Now. Right fucking now.”

  “It’s after seven. I can’t right now.”

  “Yeah, you can, and you are. Right now. I can’t wait. I can’t drive around with this shit on me.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Dude, don’t ask me questions. You don’t want to know the answers anyway. Just meet me. Now.”

  “I have to have an excuse. I have people who—”

  “I have people, too, man. We all have people. You go tell your people whatever the fuck you need to tell them, and then you meet me. You want what I got, you gotta come get it. That’s it.”

  He breathes for a while. Then he says, “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  SIXTEEN RICHARD WEATHERFORD

  I slip my phone into my pocket and stare at the carpet. Down the hall, I can hear the children in the kitchen laughing and talking. I don’t hear Penny’s voice, though I know she is with them. I don’t know yet how I should speak to her.

  I will have to walk out there and tell them all that I have to run back to the church. It’s not such an odd thing to do, for me to work late at the church before a big day like Easter. Penny will know, though. She’s already mad at me. I should address the children rather than her.

  When I step into the hallway, I run into Johnny.

  “Where you going?” I ask.

  “Kitchen.”

  Good. We can walk into together. That will make it look like I’ve been with him rather than hiding in my office.

  Matthew and Mark are at the kitchen table facing each other across some board game. This is their ritual when Matthew’s home from school. The games have changed over the years—never video games, which move too quickly for Mark—but always board games, always long, always epic. Risk. Axis and Allies. They once played a game of Monopoly that lasted over a week. I have no idea what they’re playing right now.

  Penny is leaning against the island while Mary, sitting on the counter, is saying, “Vanessa is a great roommate, but now my whole life is cat hair.”